One Hour Photo
by Uzamaki-Girl
Summary: On the eve of his parents death, Colin thinks about guilt and photographs. slightly AU with the installment of the 7th book.


DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter

**DISCLAIMER: **I do not own Harry Potter.

**A/N: **Yes, I know it's been a while since you heard anything from me. Alas, the pressures of high school and the impending doom of college have kept me busy. Anyways, this is just a little story that has been in the back of my notebook for a while and after the deathly hallows, I really wanted to write a Colin Centric story. It may be a bit AU since it was written before the 7th book but I honestly didn't deviate that much from the canon storyline. OK, enough of my babbling, on to the story.

* * *

Colin wonders. He wonders a lot these days.

And he thinks a lot to- about all sorts of things. He thinks about how pretty the water looks when it is streaked with yellow, how Ginny's freckled face squints in satisfaction as she chews on sugar quills and how tragically beautiful Cho Chang's face looked when Harry Potter arrived with Cedric Diggory's body at the Triwizard Tournament.

He thinks. He thinks. He thinks.

And he thinks about these things so much that they begin to blur together, like the shapes in a photograph. Photographs. Colin likes photographs. He likes taking pictures of his friends on happy occasions and sometimes even on sad ones. But without a doubt, the best photographs are the natural ones; the unplanned ones. It's the small crease in Harry's eye brow as he breaks it off with Ginny, and it's the shine in her eyes as she steadily walks away. It's the small touches of comfort Ron offers Hermione after she finds out her parents weren't in the house when the death eater attacked; the lost look in Draco Malfoy's eyes as he slowly lowers his wand from Dumbledore's chest and the hesitant glances his brother Dennis throws at Natalie from across the Gryffindor common room. It's the little things. And sometimes it's the big things.

Colin also thinks about Harry Potter. He thinks about the days when he and Ginny would follow him through out the school trying to convince themselves they weren't stalkers and then Ginny had "moved on" and Colin was suddenly in need of a spying partner. Mostly, though, he thinks of him during tension issued conversations- desperately trying to drudge up the innocence of his childhood.

And inevitably, when one thinks of Harry Potter, they think about guilt. Colin knew something of guilt as he was sure most people had, and the way he figured it there was three kinds of guilt. There was the guilt like Harry's- a deep chasm of pain and grief that would never really close, or the subtle kind of guilt like Ginny's- not shown in her smile or laugh but there just the same. And then there was guilt like Colin's. The growing, almost non-existent sort of guilt. The small pang when he got another one of his mom's worried letters and the brief lost of air when he found out his parents had to go into hiding and leave their lives behind. Colin knows it is his fault. The reality of the situation is that if he had never become a wizard then he would never have brought his parents into a war that they know nothing about. And out of seemingly no where he is desperate to hear his mother's gentle laugh and his father's cornball jokes and feel that same sense of protection you get from being in your mother's arms. But those days are far and few and Colin hasn't seen his parents in months.

He is brought out of his thoughts by the flashing light of a camera and the whirling noises of it snapping back into place. His camera. He had bought the camera out to take a picture of himself with the added backdrop of the lake. He had set it to go off in an hour and was going to send it as a reminder to his folks that he, Colin, was still around and still missed them. After all it was a magical camera and his parents had never seen moving pictures before. And as he walked across the gravely dirt to pick up his camera, Colin decided guilt was a lot like photographs- taken and captured.

Review please! I would like to know if anyone wants a sequel and any suggestions you have for said sequel.


End file.
